So many projects have gone onto my needles in the past few months. And—perhaps more surprisingly—even with our busy calendar, a few have actually been cast off! It's a miracle, I tell you.

This little sweater though, I admit to casting this sweater off ages ago. (2014? Really.) Due to a lack of baby girls in my world, I only had a reason to add buttons last week, then promptly mailed it off to a friend with a sweet new babe.

The pattern is Carina Spencer's Gift Wrap Sweater – my favorite go-to baby sweater. I adore Carina's patterns without exception. The construction is clever, and the worsted weight yarn she's partial too for most of her patterns always makes for a satisfyingly fast finish.

As for the yarn choice shown above, I nearly always work with hand wash only wool yarn. I make an exception, however, when knitting baby gifts (at least for non-knitters of those I don't think have a stash of hand wash only clothing to tend to). I can't help but remember back to the profoundly exhausting days of early-motherhood and am certain of how I would have felt about "hand-wash only" gifts when my kids were small. I doubt they would have seen much use, since they'd be awaiting a hand wash until they'd been outgrown.

So this sweater (along with mittens for my own kids and hats for Pete—both of whom have a knack for discovering hand knits in the laundry after the spin cycle) I use this wool blend (afflink).

It's brilliantly soft, the colors are lovely, and it can survive the occasional trip through the washer. I pick it up at my local yarn shop, but buying online is an option too if you don't have a local option!

The buttons, of course, are those that Pete made for me for Solstice from the beach pebbles for Ireland. I couldn't resist. 

And now? I'm back to knitting away on a much bigger sweater: one for me, knit from homegrown, hand-dyed wool. It's the Barn Sweater from Taproot Make. Perhaps some larger stone buttons are in order…

What's in your work basket these days, my friends?